


ride or die

by theantepenultimateriddle



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/F, PACIFIC RIM AU WOOO, and then fuck it up beyond recognition, it's kinda the plot of the first movie except I'm gonna take it, it's the one... I wanted to write, lovelace is retired and also fucked up and minkowski's a newbie and they're perfect for each other, make it gay, minkowski and lovelace are drift compatible and you can't tell me otherwise, they're also gay as shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-05-19 16:22:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14877240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theantepenultimateriddle/pseuds/theantepenultimateriddle
Summary: She’s never seen one in person. Photos, sure. Videos. She’s been military for almost 10 years now, almost as long as the machines have existed and a considerable time after they were last operational, and military means—meant— that working with the Jaeger program on some level was an inevitability. Minkowski had only ever been a paper-pusher, though, even after applying three times for the program. Being rejected three times. And then the Jaeger program was discontinued, and she figured she had lost her chance to do the one thing she’d wanted to do more than anything in the world.Until now. Until Goddard revived the project.





	1. Chapter 1

The Shatterdome smells like metal throughout, metal and paint, and it’s stuffy with the odor of too many people in too small a space everywhere except the high-ceilinged room where the Jaegers are kept. Which is, incidentally, where Lieutenant Renée Minkowski is. 

She’s never seen one in person. Photos, sure. Videos. She’s been military for almost 10 years now, almost as long as the machines have existed and a considerable time after they were last operational, and military means—meant— that working with the Jaeger program on some level was an inevitability. Minkowski had only ever been a paper-pusher, though, even after applying three times for the program. Being rejected three times. And then the Jaeger program was discontinued, and she figured she had lost her chance to do the one thing she’d wanted to do more than anything in the world.

Until now. Until Goddard revived the project.

They’re so  _ big. _ Minkowski had never known how big they really were, and now as she stands in the middle of the concrete floor with the giant metal exoskeletons looming over her like vaguely humanoid buildings the hair on the back of her neck stands up a little bit. All around her people are walking and talking and calling to each other, but the noise is drowned out by the reverberation of Minkowski’s steps through her body as she walks slowly towards the nearest Jaeger, a gunmetal-grey giant that gleams dully in the fluorescent lights. She stops at its base, near one of the legs with its diameter almost as long as she is, and stares at it for a moment. Its brushed-metal patterns are almost hypnotic, and without really thinking about it Minkowski reaches out and runs her fingers along the surface. It’s like ice against her fingertips, and she swallows hard. There’s a feeling with something so huge, something that could crush you with a movement, and it’s almost… wrong. A flash of imagery runs through Minkowski’s mind, a scene of what it would be like to face one of these things on her own, and it almost makes her step back in sudden electric fear as her brain sounds the danger alarm.  _ I wouldn’t stand a chance. Not against one of these, not alone. If I tried— _

Minkowski pulls her arm back to her side just a little bit too quickly, suppressing a shudder.  _ Best not to think about it.  _ For a second she wonders about walking away, but instead she cranes her neck up, looking at the head— at the Conn-Pod where the pilots would be— and the fear is replaced by the familiar burn of  _ wanting _ something. To be on the floor, vulnerable and soft against the metal behemoths, that’s making Minkowski’s stomach churn. But to be in control of one of them…

A woman’s voice comes from behind her, making Minkowski jump. “ _ Hephaestus Station, _ she’s called. What a junk heap, huh?”

Minkowski shoves aside the surprise and turns around slowly, already raising an eyebrow in preparation to toss an incredulous, disparaging expression and a sarcastic comment at whoever this lady thinks she is, but the look never quite gets there. As soon as she catches sight of this person behind her all the thoughts exit her mind so fast that they leave a cloud of dust behind, because this woman— with her halo of dark hair, her elegant neck, her feet in combat boots planted so solidly on the ground that it looks like an earthquake could hit them and she wouldn’t move— is by far the most stunning person Minkowski has ever seen. Her speech falters. “Um… It’s... I don’t know if I’d say that…”

The flat line of the woman’s pressed-together lips gradually turns into a cocky half-smirk. She steps towards Minkowski, moving in just close enough that Minkowski’s heart starts to pump a little faster from the proximity. “Most people wouldn’t. I just know better.” She sticks out her hand to shake. “Captain Isabel Lovelace, retired pilot. Nice to meet you, Ms…?”

“Minkowski. Uh, Lieutenant Renée Minkowski.” Belatedly, Minkowski reaches out and shakes Lovelace’s hand. Her palm is rough with callouses and her grip is firm, but her fingers are surprisingly long and delicate, and her touch sends a shiver down Minkowski’s spine as she looks Lovelace in the face. Lovelace’s eyes are a deep, dark shade of brown framed by the longest and thickest eyelashes Minkowski has ever seen, and they’re somehow even more captivating than the rest of her. She almost feels like she’s being sucked in.

“You gonna let go of me?” Lovelace asks, and Minkowski suddenly realizes that the handshake has been going on way, way too long.  _ Shit! _

Minkowski drops Lovelace’s hand and clears her throat, looking away from her. “Nice to meet you, Captain. You’re... you’re a pilot?”

“Retired.” The smile isn’t on Lovelace’s face any more, replaced by the same hard-lined expression as before. “I won’t be participating in that capacity this time around.”

This time Minkowski does raise an eyebrow. “Oh? Then why are you here?” Her voice comes off more confrontational than intended, and she winces internally at the sound.

Lovelace snorts. “I’m here to vet the safety of these things, as someone who has actually been in them before. Aka, to convince them to turn that-” she gestures to  _ Hephaestus Station _ , “-into scrap metal. It’s not safe.” She tilts her head to one side and regards Minkowski slowly. “So why are you here? I saw the expression on your face just now. You’ve never seen one before, have you?”

“Not… up close.”  _ Not in real life,  _ Minkowski thinks, but she doesn’t say it. “I’ve always wanted to, though.” She screws up her mouth. “What I wanted, actually, was to be a pilot, but I was rejected from the program when it was first started. Apparently they thought I’d be unable to drift with anyone. I was… too controlling to work in tandem.” She looks back up at Lovelace. “It’ll be different this time.”

Lovelace is silent for a long moment, then nods. “Good luck, Minkowski.” The way her lips wrap around Minkowski’s name sends a tingle down her spine. “A word of advice, though. If you do get in… don’t ever assume you really know someone. Even in the drift. Because they’ll always find a way to surprise you, and that’s not always a good thing.”  Then she turns and walks away, leaving Minkowski staring at her back.

_ Well. That was interesting. _


	2. Chapter 2

Minkowski wanders around the Jaeger holding chamber for another few minutes, taking in all of them with their huge glory and strange names—  _ Empty Man, Blessed Eternal, Theta Scenario, Dear Listener—  _ before turning around and heading to her quarters. Lovelace’s words still echo in her head; Minkowski’s never been one to take people for granted, but she’s never heard it put in such stark and ominous terms before. It’s enough to raise doubts she can’t afford to have, and as she turns the corner down the dormitory hallway she grits her teeth and shoves the thoughts away. It’s harder than it maybe should be. 

Lovelace’s voice is hard to push away.

Minkowski takes a deep breath and flaps her hands once as if shaking off water, then looks at the number she wrote on her palm earlier.  _ Room 359.  _ She scans the room numbers up and down the corridor, muttering under her breath. “359, 359…” 

A hand lands on Minkowski’s shoulder, catapulting her out of her reverie, and she jerks away from an unseen person for the second time in ten minutes. Autopilot takes over from surprise this time, turning the momentum from her forwards stumble into a spin, and she pivots and lashed out blindly with her fist at whoever tried to grab her. The shock of the punch goes all the way up to her shoulder, a burst of pain through her hand, and the person she hit reels and clutches their hands to their nose. “Ow, Jesus Christ! What are you, the freaking Karate Kid?” 

Minkowski grimaces, bringing her throbbing hand down to her side. “Sorry. You just… surprised me, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, I hope no one pops a balloon in your ear. We couldn’t afford the property damage.” The person brings their hands down from their face, revealing a scrubby mess of unshaven beard and a crooked nose that tells Minkowski this isn’t the first time its owner has been punched in the face. The man’s eyes blink at her from behind an oversized pair of glasses, narrowing slightly. “When Hera told me to come get you, Lieutenant, she didn’t say anything about you going full Kung Fu Panda on me.  _ Ow.” _

“I said I was sorry.” Minkowski pauses. “Wait, back up. Who told you to come get me?”

“Uh, Hera? Short, weird eyes, stutter? Smarter than the rest of us put together?” The man spreads his hands as if waiting for Minkowski to get it, then draws in his eyebrows. “You really don’t know what I mean.”

“Nope. Enlighten me.” Minkowski crosses her arms, tapping her foot impatiently. 

“Ah. Hera’s the... for lack of a better word, she's the science officer here.” The man makes an awkward face. “She knew who you were, so I just assumed you knew…”

“I don’t. Why do I need to see her?”

“A briefing. You’re a pilot, after all-”

_ “Potential _ pilot,” Minkowski interrupts.

“-whatever. You’re potentially a pilot, so you need to know what our MO is here. Which means I have to bring you to Hera to make sure you know exactly what the big bads we’re dealing with are. Capiche?” Minkowski opens her mouth, but the man cuts her off. “I’m gonna save you some time and just say yes for you. Alright, then! Let’s go!” He turns around and starts heading back down the hallway, then does a twirl while still walking and yells back to Minkowski. “Let’s get going already!”

Minkowski opens her mouth, then closes it and puts her face in her hands. After a moment she lifts it up. “Okay, then,” she mutters. Then Minkowski starts walking after the strange man, shaking her head as she goes. 

* * *

The man leads her down a hallway, then turns a corner, then leads her down another hallway. Soon enough Minkowski loses her sense of direction; the place is like a maze, and all the corridors look almost identical. Just as she’s sure that this guy is taking her somewhere to kill her and hide the body, they stop outside a sliding door leading to some kind of room full of beakers with strange liquids and test tubes and computers, tons of machinery and gadgets.  _ Must be some sort of laboratory. _

The man sweeps his arms in a dramatic gesture towards the door. “Go on in.”

Minkowski hesitates, then steps forwards. The door opens automatically, and she walks through into the lab, looking around. It’s more than just machinery and equipment, she sees. There are wires running through the whole place, connected to a wall of monitors that shows the inside of the Shatterdome in its entirety, along with several news programs. Along some metal shelves and tables there are jars full of some sort of formaldehyde-like substance, with things Minkowski can’t quite make out floating in them. In the middle of the room there’s a huge tank, with something fleshy inside connected to wires. 

It takes a moment for Minkowski to totally understand what she’s seeing, but when the realization hits she recoils. “Holy shit, is that a god damned _kaiju brain?!”_

“Yes,” says a hesitant female voice, and then a woman steps out from behind the tank, clearing her throat. Eiffel was right; she’s extremely short— if Minkowski had to guess, she’s barely five feet tall— and her eyes are strange, a light amber color that Minkowski has never seen before. Her hair is tucked up under a bright blue headscarf. “It definit-” Her voice breaks off in the middle of the word, and she makes a frustrated noise. “It definitely is. Are you Renée Minkowski?”

Minkowski nods. “That’s me. Hera, I presume?” 

“I already told you she was Hera,” says the man, who apparently entered after Minkowski went in. “You heard that, right?”   


Minkowski ignores him. “Your…  _ associate _ here told me you wanted to see me. Care to say why?” 

Hera sighs. “Eiffel didn’t tell you?” 

“He didn’t even tell me his name, actually.” Eiffel interjects with an indignant “Hey!”, but Minkowski plows on over him. “All he said was that I needed to know the “MO”.” She puts finger quotes around the word. “So I’m mostly in the dark here. Indulge my ignorance and explain what’s going on.” 

Hera’s eyes flit back and forth around the lab, but not in a nervous way; more like she’s going through a mental inventory. After a second they land back on Minkowski. “We’re actually waiting for another person, if that’s okay with you. I don’t want to have to explain this twice.” She clears her throat, and Minkowski gets the impression that her difficulty with words embarrasses her.  

Minkowski takes a deep breath, then gives a long, slow exhale, trying not to lose her patience. “Fine. Sure. I can do that.” 

“Great!” says Eiffel, edging her out of the way as he moves in front of her. Minkowski grunts in annoyance, but he either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore her. “Do you want the tour while we’re here? I can show you the specimens, the lab, my action figures-” 

“Action figures?” 

“Yeah, uh... “ For the first time, Eiffel actually looks sheepish. He pushes his glasses up with one finger. “Kaiju action figures. It’s kind of a hobby.”

“More like an obsession,” interjects Hera, rolling her eyes. She gives Eiffel the side-eye. “He’s a kaiju fanboy. Even has the tattoos.” 

Minkowski blinks, confused. “What? Why would you get a tattoo of a kaiju?” 

Eiffel winces. “I just think they’re cool, that’s all.” 

The door slides open again with a  _ whoosh,  _ and a familiar voice speaks. “What’s so cool about a monster that kills thousands?” 

_ Oh, shit.  _

Eiffel’s explanation about Godzilla and monsters fighting robots and movie-quality content doesn’t register in Minkowski's mind, which is occupied by one thought only.  _ Again? _

For the second time that day, Minkowski turns around and faces Isabel Lovelace. “Hello, Captain,” she says. “What are you doing here?” 

Lovelace raises an eyebrow. “I was told to come here at my nearest convenience. Assuming it’s the same for you, it must be something to do with these two nerds.” She gestures to Eiffel and Hera. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Eiffel interrupts. He steps forwards and puts his palms up, looking back and forth between them. “You two know each other?”

“Not Biblically, but yes,” Lovelace says, ignoring the choking noise Minkowski makes. “We met earlier today.” She winks at Minkowski, and Minkowski’s face immediately flushes. She sputters for words for a moment, then Hera mercifully cuts in. 

“Okay then,” she says, then clicks her tongue. “That’s… good to know, but irrelevant to what we’re doing. If you’ll turn your attention over here for a moment…” Hera walks over to one of the computers and the rest of them head over as well, clustering around the monitor as Hera types on the keyboard. A 3-dimensional graph appears on the screen, slowly rotating. 

Minkowski’s no mathematician, but she can see the lines on it going up. 

“This,” Hera says, pointing to the graph, “is the modeled prediction of kaiju attacks. You’ve heard that they’re becoming more and more frequent over time? What you don’t know is just how many there have actually been. The biggest ones, those get on the news. The smaller ones Goddard’s covering up to avoid mass panic. The wall does nothing to stop them, they’re ripping through like it’s nothing, and they’re getting bigger and more powerful. Attacks have been occuring once every few weeks, and the time between them is decreasing exponentially. At this rate, we’re going to have attacks every few days, and then every few hours, and then every 15 minutes.”

“A la Battlestar Galatica,” Eiffel says. “Except the robots are on our side.”

Hera makes an annoyed noise. “How many times do I have to say it, Eiffel, the Jaegers aren’t— okay, actually, go ahead. If it makes you feel better, they’re robots.”

“It does make me feel better. Thanks for the permission, Spock.” 

Lovelace snickers, but Hera scowls. “Quit that.” She resumes typing. “We can’t figure out how to stop it yet, but we can do one thing: we can get some of them up and running again, to fight. And once I figure out-”

_ “We _ figure out,” Eiffel interrupts again.

“Once  _ we  _ figure out what’s causing this,” Hera says pointedly, “we’ll be able to stop it. Until then… we’ve got defense measures.”

“Uh-huh,” Lovelace says, her tone somewhat suspicious. “And why are you telling us this?”

“Two reasons,” Hera says. “One, everyone needs to know what kind of threat we’re dealing with here, if only so they take it seriously. And two, to tell you what you’re going to be up against.”

“Whoa, hold your horses.” Lovelace narrows her eyes, glaring at Hera. “”Up against”? I’m retired. This isn’t my fight anymore, and I’m never getting into one of those things again. If you think that you can coerce me into-”

“Lovelace.” Minkowski looks at her, then sighs. “No one’s forcing you into anything. No coercion. But… I think we need you. This is everyone’s fight right now, and these look like bad odds.”

“Not hopeless odds, though,” Lovelace counters. Her jaw clenches. “I’ve said what I have to say: I. Am. Retired. And I’m never, ever going back into one of those death traps. No matter what.” And with that she turns and leaves, walking quickly out of the room. 

It almost seems like she’s running away.

* * *

Minkowski wipes the sleep out of her eyes and levels her bleary gaze at the punching bag, taking a deep breath and pushing yesterday’s events and last night’s restless dreams and the oppressive knowledge that today’s her last chance to prove herself out of her head. She inhales, exhales, inhales, exhales, until the world narrows down to nothing but her and the bag. Then she jerks her glove-clad fists up and throws a right hook, hitting it directly in the center with a slight jingling of the support chain.

The shock of the punch goes all the way up her arm, but she barely notices. She draws back and hits it again the same way, then switches hands. It takes a bit of time, but Minkowski builds up a rhythm of hits, mostly fast-moving jabs to where the vitals and the tender spots on a human would be. She doesn’t have as much raw force in her punches as a stronger person might, but she has speed and precision, and she’s been practicing for a very long time. It’s easy to lose herself in the motions that she’s done so many times before.  _ Left-right-left-right-left-right-left— _

“Well, well, well,” a crisp woman’s voice says, cutting through Minkowski’s concentration like a razor through a vein. “What have we here? Lieutenant Minkowski, up early practicing for combat.” 

Minkowski tries to get her breathing and heartbeat under control, brushing her damp hair out of her face with one wrist. She steps back and looks at the person who interrupted her, gritting her teeth into the most displeased scowl she can muster with sweat dripping into her stinging eyes. “Is it such a surprise that I take my preparation seriously, Ms. Young?

Ms. Rachel Young, right-hand woman to the new leaders of the Jaeger program, looks back at her with an unpleasant smirk that speaks volumes as to how stupid she thinks Minkowski is. “You know, it really isn’t,” she says. “How long have you been up, Minkowski?”

_ Good question. _ It’s definitely been a while, but Minkowski resists the urge to check her watch. No need to give the bastard any satisfaction. Instead she changes the subject. “Miss, is there a reason you’re interrupting me, or—?”

“As a matter of fact, there is.” Rachel’s insincere smile drops, and Minkowski is relieved for both of them. “You’re aware of what today is, correct?” 

“Testing day.” Minkowski swallows hard. “Yes, I’m aware.”

Rachel raises an eyebrow. “Really?” She draws the word out far too long for her comfort. “Because I was going to say that today is your day to meet with Mr. Cutter for a briefing on what will happen if it turns out that you’ve retained your drift-compatibility…  _ issues.”  _ Rachel continues talking, seemingly oblivious to the way the bottom has just dropped out of Minkowski’s stomach. “In fact, I’d say that this meeting is scheduled in Mr. Cutter’s calendar to take place at 7:00 am. Which is in…” Rachel glances at her watch. “Ten minutes.”

_ “What?!” _

“I suggest you change into more suitable clothing on your way there, Lieutenant.” Rachel turns to walk away with a waggle of manicured claws. “See you here at testing!” 

Minkowski flips off her back, then turns and jogs to the changing room, trying to ignore the stitch in her side.  _ Maybe,  _ she thinks, pushing open the door and stumbling inside,  _ if I hurry, maybe I can make it in time.  _

_ And maybe pigs will fly.  _

* * *

By the time Minkowski gets to Cutter’s office it’s already 7:15, and she’s sweating so much into her t-shirt and jeans that she’s wondering why she even changed in the first place. The wooden door with the gold plaque on it reading “Marcus Cutter, Project Director” seems to stare her down.  _ Give up,  _ it says.  _ Don’t go to this meeting. Go back to your room, shower, and then hand in your resignation. It’d be so easy. _

Minkowski takes a deep breath, then reaches out and knocks on the door. “Sir?” she calls tentatively. “Hello?”

“Come in!” someone calls back from inside. The voice, despite how perky it is  _ (because _ of how perky it is?) makes something in Minkowski’s stomach clench tighter. The instinct to run reaches a peak, and she takes a tiny, tiny step backwards. Then Minkowski’s logical brain takes over and she shoves open the door, stepping inside. 

She stops almost immediately. 

The office is  _ huge,  _ almost monstrously so. It’s bigger than most of the conference rooms Minkowski has been in, a long, long room that goes on for a metaphorical forever. Whereas conference rooms usually have whiteboards and long tables and chairs, however, this room has… nothing. There’s nothing at all there except a few pieces of abstract art on pedestals, a ridiculously plush carpet, and a desk at the very end of the room with a man who looks like a clip-art stereotype of a businessman sitting behind it shuffling papers. For a second the sheer size of the place stuns Minkowski to a halt, right up until the door swings shut behind her and she jumps in surprise. “Uh, hello. Mr. Cutter, sir? I’m Lieutenant Renée Minkowski, I’m, uh-”

“Oh, I know who you are!” the man says, looking up. “You’re my 7:00 appointment. Except…” he gives his watch a meaningful look. “It seems you’re a little bit late. Care to explain?” Minkowski opens her mouth, but before she can answer he waves a hand in dismissal. “No, no, it doesn’t matter. We all make mistakes now and again, right? And I’m sure it won’t happen a second time, now  _ will _ it?” 

There’s an edge to the way he says it that makes Minkowski shiver, and she nods. “It won’t, sir.” She swallows hard. “It absolutely won’t.”

“Good!” Cutter pauses, tilting his head. “Why are you standing all the way over there, Renée? Come on over here.” He beckons, and Minkowski reluctantly starts walking down the length of the room towards him. Every step of hers seems amplified, even though it’s all muffled by the carpet, and she winces at the noise of her own footfalls. Once she’s standing in front of his desk, she attempts to look him in the eye. It’s a mistake. 

Cutter’s eyes are a cool shade of green, the color of faded dollar bills, and they stare directly into her soul. Despite his glistening Colgate smile, there are no crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, no indication that any emotion really makes it all the way there. His gaze is as empty as the room.

It’s barely a half-second before Minkowski looks away, shifting her line of sight almost imperceptibly to the bridge of his nose. She clears her throat, trying to regain her mental footing. “I heard you wanted to see me, sir?” 

“Yes, yes. Renée,” Cutter says, affecting friendliness that doesn’t in the slightest turn away Minkowski’s unease. He steeples his fingers and leans forwards. “You applied to— and were rejected by— the Jaeger program when it was active… twice, was it? Three times?” 

He pauses, and Minkowski swallows hard. “Three times, sir.”

“Mm-hm. For what they called control issues, as I’ve heard from a few different little birds.” Minkowski opens her mouth to explain, but Cutter waves it away. “Oh, no need to defend yourself! There’s nothing wrong with wanting a little bit of control. It’s really a shame you haven’t been able to move up the ladder until now, I think. After all, you were so eager.” Cutter shakes his head and his smile slides off his face like grease off a pan. 

“This is your second chance we at Goddard are offering,” he says. “More accurately, it’s your fourth chance. We need people who are still serious about the program, even after it’s been defunct for so many years. We need people with experience, yes, but also people like you. People with… personal investments.” His eyes narrow. “But make no mistake, Renée; this is not a joke, and it is not a playground, and it is not your wish fulfillment. We have no time for people who can’t drift or be.. otherwise useful. And frankly, you’re only useful to us as a pilot. If you can’t fulfill that duty, you’ll be given a new identity, a new life where no one will believe you about your role in Goddard or the Jaeger resurgence, and Lieutenant Renée Minkowski will cease to exist. Understood?”

Minkowski processes this for a moment, taking conscious steps to control her breathing, and then nods mutely. She doesn’t trust herself to speak without her voice shaking. 

Cutter smiles again, leaning back in his chair. “Good! I thought we’d be on the same page.” He’s all chipper energy again, and the change almost gives Minkowski whiplash. “Now run along, and remember: be in the training room by noon sharp. We wouldn’t want to miss you!” 

Minkowski stands there for a moment, still getting his words through her head, until he makes a shooing gesture with one hand. “Go, go. Things for you to do, people for you to see. It’s a big day.” 

“Yes, sir,” Minkowski manages. Then she takes a deep breath and turns around, almost (but not quite) running down the length of the office and out the door. It’s only after it swings shut behind her and she’s halfway down the hall that the prickling feeling on the back of her neck subsides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know there are multiple scientists in Wolf 359 that would make more sense in this position than Eiffel and Hera. However most of them were either evil or extremely morally grey and as a scientist? If I don't have a gun to my head I'm not gonna write any bad scientists without more good ones to balance them out, so just bear with me.


	3. Chapter 3

Minkowski stares across the mat at the man across from her, assessing his stance, the way he holds the wooden staff loosely in one hand, the shift of his body. Her palms are sweating, and she surreptitiously tries to adjust her hold on her own staff, sliding them down slightly. She has to work to block out the chatter of the people surrounding the fighting area, even though this fight is relatively low-stakes for her. Daniel Jacobi’s already got a partner in the drift, and there’s no way that Minkowski’s going to supplant Maxwell in compatibility— not that she’d even want to. But… she’d rather not get her ass kicked first round.

Cutter’s there, too, after all. Rachel next to him keeping score. And just behind Jacobi, her arms folded tightly, is Lovelace. Which is probably the source of most of her stress.

_What is she even doing here? It’s not like she’s here to fight._

_Is she here for me?_

Jacobi notices Minkowski adjusting her grip and smiles, baring his teeth at her. “Nervous already, Lieutenant? We haven’t even started yet.”

The silver laugh of Alana Maxwell resounds through the ring above a few other chuckles and Minkowski grits her teeth, but she keeps her eyes on him, watching for movement as she responds. “No. That would imply that you’re giving me anything to worry about.”

There’s an “Ohhhh” from the group outside the mat as everyone takes in that comment, but the sound hasn’t even left their collective lips before Jacobi whirls forwards and slams his staff down on Minkowski’s head.

Or, at least, on where Minkowski’s head _was._ She pivots out of the way as quickly as she can and catches the blow on her own staff, diverting it and Jacobi past her with a loud clacking of wood. As he goes past she moves aside, leaving a space between him and her on the mat again. He turns, lashing out again with a jab towards Minkowski’s core, and she bats him aside with a swift motion. Minkowski backs up, aware of how he’s put her on the defensive almost immediately. It’s not a good position to be in, when fighting. But…

 _The best defense,_ Minkowski thinks, and feints right before jumping forwards and sweeping her staff at Jacobi’s left leg. He tries to move back, but the blow lands with a _thump_ that jars Minkowski’s wrists, and he hisses through his teeth. He doesn’t fall, but Minkowski catches his balance wobbling. She tries to take advantage of the momentary weakness by diverting the rest of the movement upwards towards his stomach, but Jacobi recovers too quickly, jerking his staff down to block Minkowski’s strike. He twists and wrenches upwards hard, trying to break Minkowski’s grip. The position puts Minkowski’s shoulders in an uncomfortable position, until her right one feels like it might dislocate and her muscles, already sore from this morning’s ill-advised exercise, start screaming. She can feel her grip starting to loosen.

Jacobi notices her discomfort and laughs. “What was that about not being worried?” Out of the corner of her eye, Minkowski catches Cutter shaking his head.

Minkowski inhales, then takes a quick step forwards and pulls her arms inwards, turning the force back against Jacobi and pulling him too close for the staff to be effective. He reels, but before he can recover she kicks her leg up at him, planting her foot firmly on his chest. He takes the momentum well and yields backwards with it, but Minkowski uses the moment to twist free of his grip. Then they’re standing apart from each other again, circling slowly. A trickle of sweat runs between Minkowski’s shoulder blades.

Minkowski decides to test the waters with a small lunge forwards and Jacobi pulls back in response, raising his staff defensively. Minkowski’s staff sweeps harmlessly through the air in front of him, and he doesn’t retaliate. _Good,_ Minkowski thinks, her lips curling into a small smile for the first time that day. _That means he’s finally taking this seriously._ She pulls her staff back to herself and resumes circling, keeping a watchful eye on Jacobi’s face. His eyes flick to her legs and she starts to step aside and moves her staff to block, but she’s far too slow and far too wrong. Jacobi’s staff hits her in the side heavily enough to drive the air from her lungs, and she gasps as pain stabs through her ribs. It isn’t a hard enough hit to break anything, but it isn’t a fun one either.

Jacobi sees her weakness and rushes to take advantage of it, drawing back for another strike, and Minkowski drops to the ground and rolls aside as his staff whistles through the air over her again. He takes two steps forwards, and suddenly Minkowski can see an opening, clear as day. She knows, she _knows_ she can end this. Minkowski shoves herself up when he’s almost past her and swings one end of the staff up and into his chest, while at the same time kicking out towards the back of his legs. Both hits land at the same time, and the impact knocks Jacobi’s legs out from under him, sending him sprawling onto his ass. Before he can get up Minkowski steps closer and points the end of her staff toward his throat.

“Next time,” she says, “talk less.”

This time it’s Lovelace’s laugh that comes from across the floor and breaks through the chatter, and Minkowski looks up away from the prone Jacobi to see her with a shit-eating grin spread across her face. She uncrosses her arms, making eye contact with Minkowski, and claps slowly five times. When she finishes, the silence is almost deafening.

It’s broken by Cutter, who clears his throat as Minkowski moves back and lets Jacobi off the mat. “Ahem. Good job, Renée. Now, moving on to your next opponent… Warren, could you please-“

Minkowski’s blood freezes, because “Warren” can only mean Colonel Warren Kepler, a hulking brute of a man with a cruel streak just barely hidden behind an amiable facade. She can’t imagine fighting him, can’t ever imagine being drift-compatible with him, and more to the point she can never imagine _winning_ a fight against him. She’s not a bad fighter, but she’s also not very big, and he has a good six inches and hundred pounds on her, at least. Physical size, while never everything, does count for something.

Minkowski thinks of all of this in the split-second before Cutter finishes his sentence, and then does something totally insane. She interrupts him.

“Actually, sir, I have an idea for who I’d like my next opponent to bet.”

The circle of people, as one, draws a breath as Cutter looks back at Minkowski. He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, do you? Do tell.”

 _This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy—_ “Yes, sir.” Then she drops her staff with a clatter, turns, and points directly at Lovelace. “If you’d be amenable? I’d like Captain Lovelace to join me in the ring.”

Lovelace’s brown eyes widen, and her jaw drops slightly. Before she can speak, Cutter lets out a disturbing noise that could only really be described as a giggle. “Oh, Renée, Renée, Renée. I think I’d be _very_ amenable to that.” He turns to face Lovelace and gestures faux-courteously to the ring. “Isabel, if you please?”

Lovelace looks back and forth between Cutter and Minkowski, then sighs. “Your funeral, Minkowski.” Then she slips off her shoes and steps into the ring, rolling her neck. Minkowski leans down to pick up the staff, but Lovelace shakes her head. “Nuh-uh. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it the classic way. She cracks her knuckles. “Hand-to-hand.”

Minkowski looks at her, then sighs and kicks her staff off the mat. “Alright, then. Whatever you want.”

“Remember, ladies,” Cutter says from across the floor, “this isn’t a fight, per say. This is an… assessment of synchronity. Keep that in mind.”

“Great.” The corner of Lovelace’s mouth twitches up almost imperceptibly. “Let’s get this party started, then.” And she sweeps her leg across the floor, trying to kick Minkowski’s feet out from under her.

Minkowski sees her beginning to move and jumps her leg, then moves forwards and goes in for a jab to Lovelace’s kidneys. Lovelace dodges the hit by an inch and goes in closer, sending an upwards punch to Minkowski’s solar plexus that she only barely manages to twist and avoid. She grabs Lovelace’s arm as it goes by and pulls her in closer, getting her right in front of her. Minkowski goes for a high kick to the head before Lovelace can wrench her arm out of her grip, but Lovelace is more in-tune to her movements than she thought, and she twists her arm out of Minkowski’s grasp before the kick lands. She whirls away too quickly for Minkowski to see clearly, but for a fraction of a second it looks like there’s a grin on her face, wide with a kind of wild joy. It's gone by the time she’s standing across from Minkowski again, replaced by a flat and analytical expression, but Minkowski can’t forget what she saw.

On some level, at least, Lovelace is enjoying this. And Minkowski, tired as she is, sweaty and sore and worn out from fighting as she is… Minkowski would be lying if she said she wasn’t.

Minkowski sees Lovelace shuffle her feet and skirts forward before she can move, kicking up again at her, but Lovelace is already into her own motion and she ducks Minkowski’s leg, then pops up again too close for her to hit and drives her elbow into Minkowski’s side. There’s no way Minkowski can dodge, but she takes the hit and rolls with the momentum, trapping Lovelace’s arm and twisting her body into a throw. Lovelace manages to rotate her body in the air in an almost catlike motion and lands on her feet, then pulls in Minkowski closer, grappling with her. Her face is directly in front of Minkowski’s, so close Minkowski can feel the warmth of her breath, take in the details of her brown eyes, her long eyelashes, her lips. It’s less than a second but it feels like an eternity.

Then Minkowski punches Lovelace in the stomach, and then moment ends.

Lovelace catches the blow on the meat of her free arm, then pulls away from Minkowski again. She shakes her head. “You know, Minkowski,” she says, and Minkowski can hear how breathless her voice is, “for someone as green as you are, you’re pretty good at this.”

“You know, Lovelace,” Minkowski replies through her own heavy breaths, unable to keep her lips from twitching into a smile even as she continues to circle her, “for someone who’s been out of the game for as long as you have, you’re not bad either.”

Lovelace’s eyebrows fly up, but she’s not angry; instead Minkowski sees a flash of that same almost feral joy on her face. “Oh, those are some fighting words.” She tests the waters with a kick, but Minkowski dodges swiftly.

“Are we fighting, then?” Minkowski follows her, reaching out into an experimental punch. She’s not surprised when Lovelace steps out of the way, too.

“I don’t know. Are we?” And then Lovelace goes back into motion in earnest, lashing out with her fists, and it’s all Minkowski can do to parry.

It goes on like that between them for an indeterminate amount of time— Minkowski feels like she’s losing herself in it, in the motion of kick-punch-lunge-twist-block-dodge-attack. It doesn’t feel like her fight with Jacobi. It doesn’t feel like any fight she’s ever had, and if she’s honest it almost doesn’t feel like a fight at all. It’s more like a dance, fluid and sinuous, perfectly timed to a beat that no one can hear. It’s exhilarating.

But as much unlike a fight as it is, it’s still exhausting, and eventually Minkowski gets sloppy. She goes in for a punch to Lovelace’s jaw, but she leaves her legs in the way, and Lovelace kicks her right leg out from under her as she moves. Her balance fails, and Minkowski falls to the ground with a _thump_ that jars her head and feels like it rattles her eyeballs. She grunts in pain. Before she can get up, there’s Lovelace standing over her with a foot planted squarely on her sternum.

For a moment there’s absolute silence, only broken by their panting. Then Lovelace takes her foot off of Minkowski and offers her a hand to help her up.

Minkowski takes it and stands.

Cutter’s voice cuts in again, riding on a torrent of whispers. “Oh,” he says, his eyebrows so high on his face that they’re almost disappearing into his hairline. “Oh, oh, oh. Now this is interesting. Rachel, you’ve been taking notes?”

Rachel sighs, her face bored. She taps her long nails on her clipboard. “I don’t see why I needed to, sir. It’s obvious.”

“You’re absolutely right.” Cutter’s ever-present smile widens, and Minkowski feels more than sees Lovelace shudder. “I think, Renée, that you’ve just found your partner in the drift.”

Time stops.

_Partner in the drift._

_Lovelace._

There’s a clatter, and Minkowski comes out of her head just in time to see Lovelace disappear through the doorway, moving at a dead run. She hesitates for a half-second, aware of Cutter’s eyes on hers, then swears and runs after Lovelace. “Captain, wait!”

By the time she gets into the hallway, though, Lovelace is already gone.

* * *

She finds her in the Jaeger holding chamber, on the floor in front of the one called _Hephaestus Station._ Lovelace is staring up at it, expressionless. She turns when she hears Minkowski’s footsteps.

“Should have known you’d find me here,” she says. Her voice is dull and flat, a sharp contrast to her usual vitality. “Seeing as we’re “drift compatible” and all.” She puts finger quotes around the words.

Minkowski frowns, then takes a deep breath. “Lovelace-“

“Save it. I’ve made my position clear, Minkowski. I’m out of the game.”

This time the word kindle anger in Minkowski’s chest, and her frown twists into a snarl. “Yeah? Then why’d you fight me? Why’d you risk getting in the ring with me, Lovelace? If you’re out of the game, you could have just walked away, and don’t give me any more _bullshit,”_ she says, cutting Lovelace off from whatever she had opened her mouth to say. “I saw the look on your face,” Minkowski continues. “You enjoyed fighting me, Captain. I know you did. So why are you so— so—“

“Stubborn?” Lovelace suggests. Her shoulders droop. She doesn’t look angry anymore, just defeated. “I can’t do this. I told you. It’s— it’s important that I don’t.”

“What’s important,” Minkowski says, stepping closer and getting in her face again, “are people’s lives. And if you’d sacrifice those, just because of whatever made you think that you can’t do this? Then you’re so much more selfish than I ever thought you were.”

Those words finally strike a chord in Lovelace, and her body tenses. When she speaks her voice is tight with spiteful rage. “And you aren’t? Admit it, Minkowski, the only reason you want to do this is because you want to feel powerful. You think once you get into one of these things,” she gestures to _Hephaestus Station,_ “you’ll have control for once in your life, and you’re so wrong that you haven’t even realized it yet! You’re naive if you think that either of us can help anybody this way.”

“Then I’m naive!” Minkowski’s voice is sharp and loud, almost yelling. “I’m a stupid rookie with no idea what I’m getting into and delusions of grandeur, but at least I give one tenth, one hundredth of a shit about the rest of the world! It doesn’t stop and start with you, so stop pretending it does and _stop running away!”_

There’s a long silence, and then the fight goes out of Lovelace, leaving her looking like a marionette somehow still standing even after its strings had been cut. She turns away, but not before Minkowski catches a glimpse of tears in her eyes.

It pulls at something in her chest, seeing Lovelace vulnerable like this.

Minkowski sighs, then puts her hand on Lovelace’s arm, expecting her to pull away. She doesn’t, and Minkowski has to work to ignore how smooth her skin is, the feel of her muscles beneath it. “Look,” she says. “I don’t know how much more I— we— can tell you this, but we need you. There’s not enough here. There aren’t enough Jaegers, there aren’t enough resources, there’s not enough time, and above all there aren’t enough people. But we’re people. I’m…” Minkowski swallows. “I’m going to get kicked out of the program if I can’t drift with someone,” she says, resenting the weakness in her voice when she says it, the fear just under the surface. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to you. And that means that we’d be a team, one whole team, that would just be… gone. The program can’t afford that loss. So, Captain… please. Just, please.”

There’s a pause, then Lovelace sighs. “Fine.” A grin spreads across Minkowski’s face, and Lovelace shoots her a warning glance. “I hope you know how much this is going to hurt.”

“But maybe it won’t.” Minkowski moves her hand to Lovelace’s shoulder and gently tugs her around to face her. “I don’t know what happened to you, but maybe it won’t happen again. Maybe, just maybe, this time it won’t be so bad.”

Lovelace smiles, but it’s sad and bitter. She shakes her head. “All fire burns, Minkowski. It just… doesn’t matter to the moths.”

Minkowski crooks up an eyebrow. “So we’re moths now?”

“Short-lived, soft-bodied, and constantly in places we shouldn’t be?” Lovelace’s smile becomes something more genuine. “Yeah, I think that about sums it up.” She shrugs Minkowski’s hand off gently. “I’m going back to my quarters. But… I’ll see you here tomorrow.”

“Really? You’ll do it? You’ll drift with me?”

“God help me, yeah. I will.” Lovelace exhales slowly. “See you later, Minkowski.” Then she turns and begins to walk away.

As she does, Minkowski remembers something else she said. “Lovelace,” she calls after her.

Lovelace stops walking and looks over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

“When you told me never to assume I really knew someone… does that mean you, too?”

Lovelace lets out a sharp bark of laughter. “It _especially_ means me.”

Then she leaves again, and Minkowski is left with a strange taste in her mouth and a sense of deja-vu that supplants every bit of the triumph she had felt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! They’ve figured it out! God, these chapters are getting long. Fun fact: the line about fire and moths is at least in part inspired by Don Marquis's poem "the lesson of the moth", part of a series of poems following the life of a free-form poet reincarnated into a cockroach. If you have time, I really encourage you check it out.


	4. Chapter 4

Minkowski sits up with a gasp in her bed, looking frantically around the dark room. Her body is shaking, her heart beating hard against her ribs, and even though she’s panting her lungs are burning like she’s not getting enough air. For a frantic moment she can’t remember where she is, and the panic kicks up a notch, driven by this hot, dark, unrecognizable place that smells so strongly of metal. Her stomach pitches with nausea, and she scrambles to kick off the blanket covering her. Then she catches sight of the alarm clock on the side of her bed—  _ her _ alarm clock— and everything seems to snap into focus.  _ The Hong Kong Shatterdome. Room 359. My room.  _

With the realization some of the panic begins to fade, and Minkowski finally manages a deep breath. She exhales slowly, then rolls over and turns the light on, blinking in the sudden glare. Minkowski takes another glance at her alarm clock and groans when she sees the time.  _ 4:55 am.  _ Too early to get up, but even though her anxiety is fading Minkowski can already tell that going back to sleep isn’t an option. Instead she slowly swings her legs out of bed, then stands, stretching. Her muscles are sore and stiff from yesterday’s exertions, but Minkowski’s used to that kind of pain, and she ignores it. She walks over to her dresser and starts rifling through the clothes, then pulls out a dark grey t-shirt and cargo pants, going for comfort and functionality. After pulling the clothes on she shoves her feet into a pair of boots, brushes her hair back into a low ponytail, and then stalls by the door, hesitating.  _ It’s too early, no one will be awake, _ her brain protests, but her instincts override her brain.  _ It’s stuffy and claustrophobic and—  _ her stomach rumbles, alerting her in sharp relief to how hungry she is—  _ you need food.  _ Minkowski sighs, then relents and pushes the door open.

The hallway is empty when she steps out into it, which surprises her approximately not at all. She treads as lightly as she can down the corridors, but her footsteps seem incredibly loud as they echo off the metal-lined walls, and she winces and prays she hasn’t woken anyone up. Thankfully the canteen is close.

In spite of the noise she’s making, the halls are totally silent, so quiet that if Minkowski were younger she might call it spooky. The illusion that she’s the only person awake isn’t broken until she rounds the corner and sees Hera struggling to open the heavy canteen door with her hands full of books, papers, and other miscellaneous items. Minkowski stops in her tracks, staring at the spectacle of the tiny woman ramming her shoulder very carefully into the door to push open it without dropping anything, then decides to clear her throat. “Uh. Hera?”

Hera startles but somehow manages to keep her grip on everything, which is impressive in and of itself. She turns and glares at Minkowski, but there’s no real heat behind it. “Why are you awake?” she demands. Then she jerks her head dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. Go back to sleep, Minkowski, you have a big day today.” Then she starts to turn back.

Minkowski interrupts her, taking a single step forwards. “Are you sure you don’t want help?”

Hera makes an annoyed noise, looking over her shoulder. “I’m the smartest person in this entire base— barring possibly Maxwell and Dr. Pryce— by a mile. This door is just a… temporary inconvenience.”

“Uh-huh.” Minkowski crosses her arms. “So you knew it was a pull door this whole time, then?”

It’s as if the simple statement is the end of the world. Hera’s face practically crumples and her entire body slumps in some sort of mix of exhaustion and disappointment. “Oh,” she says, her voice flat and emotionless. “That explains it.”

Minkowski waits for a second to see if she’s going to move, then sighs and walks forwards. She pulls the door open and motions Hera in. “After you.” 

Hera looks up, drawing her eyebrows together in confusion. “But I told you to go back to sleep.”

“You did,” Minkowski says, acknowledging that. “Then I decided that what I really wanted to do instead of lying around in the dark for another...” she checks the watch of her free hand. “Another 30 minutes was eat a god damned blueberry muffin. Plus…” she trails off, shifting uncomfortably. “I'm not so sure I want to be alone right now.”

Hera hesitates for a half-second, then nods, a quick and birdlike motion. “Alright, then,” she says. Then she walks in, her quick steps making her sneakers squeak in rhythm as she walks, and Minkowski follows. She makes sure to shut the door behind them.

There’s already some food set out on the ground floor— the canteen staff are true gods, Minkowski decides, and must be respected and protected and possibly worshipped— so the blueberry muffin of her dreams is easily accessible, if prepackaged. She considers other food too, because Hera’s right about this being a big  _ (scary, huge, terrifying, wonderful) _ day for her, but her stomach is still tender with the nausea she had when she woke up, and she ends up heading back to one of the tables with only the muffin and a glass of milk. Hera sits down next to her a minute or so later, balancing a tray piled high with food along with her books and papers. The stack teeters as she nudges a chair out, and Minkowski winces, leaning away. Miraculously, though, nothing falls. Hera sits down without incident and starts to eat ravenously, like she hasn’t seen food in years. The sounds echo through huge, empty room, and Minkowski’s already low appetite wanes even further. She doesn’t even bother to unwrap the muffin. Instead she takes covert glances at Hera, watching her.

Hera looks… haggard is the only word for it, Minkowski concludes. She’s wearing the same clothes from yesterday, but in distinctly more disarray, and her headscarf is skewed. There are dark circles around her huge eyes, and the skin around her knuckles is raw and ragged with torn skin and bites— probably the result of a nervous habit. It looks like she hasn’t slept in days. 

After a minute or so the frantic speed of Hera’s eating slows down, then stops entirely. She sets down her knife and fork with a  _ plunk _ and looks at Minkowski. “Okay. Let’s just- just get this out of the way. Why are you looking at me like that?”

Minkowski smooths her features out into a mask. “Like what?”

Hera snorts. “No offense, Lieutenant, but you don’t have a great poker face. Your emotions sort of… come right out of you. And right now, they’re saying “concern”. So why are you looking at me like that?”

Minkowski hesitates, then sighs. “Look. You’re the scientist keeping track of the kaiju shit, and I’m pretty sure you’re kind of essential to everything we’re trying to do here. So seeing you looking like you got run over by a truck isn’t exactly reassuring. If you’re sleep-deprived to the point where you can’t open a door, well… I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that’s not good.”

There’s a long pause as Hera takes that in. Then she sighs. “You’re right. But… I have to do this. I  _ have _ to do this, and stopping isn’t an option. I’m essential, right? I can’t just lie down and ignore everything.”

Now  _ that’s  _ a feeling Minkowski understands intimately. But, hypocrite that she is, she shakes her head. “Sleeping isn’t ignoring anything. It’s taking care of yourself so you can… work at optimal performance, I guess. Take 8 hours off. You’ll be fine.”

“Thanks, Minkowski. Still, though.” Hera slumps slightly. “I can’t. There’s too much to look through with the numbers still.” She cracks her neck and picks up her fork again, taking another bite of food. Through the mouthful, she mumbles “At least they’re pretty.”

“Pretty?” 

“Yes. They have nice colors.” Hera swallows her bite and washes it down with a drink of water. “I’m synesthetic. It makes the math a little bit more interesting.”

“So you see colors with numbers?” Minkowski wrinkles her nose. “Sounds overwhelming.”

“Numbers, letters, sounds, yeah. All of the above. And it is, sometimes. But it’s my life.” She shrugs, then points to Minkowski’s muffin. “Are you going to eat that?”

Minkowski looks at it, then sighs and pushes it over to Hera. She shoves her chair back from the table and stands. “I’m gonna… go. I’ll see you around, Hera.”

Hera grabs her wrist before she can walk away. “Wait, before you do. I’m supposed to tell you that you and Lovelace will be drifting at 8 am, in  _ Hephaestus Station.  _ Don’t forget.”

“Wait, what? I thought that one was out of order?” Minkowski can clearly recall Lovelace saying that it was unusable and dangerous. A junk heap, she had said. “Wouldn’t it be a problem?”

Hera looks taken aback. “Out of order? No, it’s in perfect working condition, or as close as we can get it after all these years. Who told you it was out of order?” 

Minkowski opens her mouth, then pauses and shakes her head. “No one. Just something I heard around. Thanks for the information, Hera.” Then she gently tugs her wrist away from Hera and leaves, wondering what to do with the time she has to kill before the most important moment of her life so far.


	5. Chapter 5

A few hours later Minkowski grits her teeth and tugs at the circuitry suit, trying to pull it up over her legs enough to bring the top half up and get her arms into it. The wetsuit-like garment is both tight and non-stretchy, which is in Minkowski’s opinion a  _ horrible _ design choice, and the synaptic mesh sewn into the polymer scratches at her bare skin. The cool air of the locker room runs over her bare upper body, and she winces, tugging harder at the suit. “Come on, come on…” The last thing she wants is to be caught in her underwear and bra struggling with the circuitry suit, and the paranoia is eating at her even more than the frustration. 

There’s a quiet  _ thump _ outside the room, and Minkowski glances up at the door with her eyes wide, checking to see if anyone is coming. Nothing. She starts to breathe out a sigh of relief when the door opens and Lovelace comes in, balancing her own equipment on one arm.

Lovelace doesn’t quite stop dead when she sees Minkowski, but she does pause for a second, taking her in as Minkowski’s cheeks heat up with a red-hot blush. The moment of Lovelace’s hesitation makes Minkowski want to sink into herself and hide, but all she can manage is staring at her like a deer in headlights, frozen in place. To her credit, Lovelace unfreezes before she does, licking her lips and walking forwards with a nonchalant swagger that Minkowski is sure must be deliberate. “Hey, Minkowski. Having some trouble there?” She lays out the pieces of her own uniform— circuitry suit, armor— on one of the benches, spreading them out in a precise way that reminds Minkowski of her history in piloting. Her experience.

Minkowski clears her throat. “Yeah. I, uh. Got a little stuck. Any tips for how to actually get this on?”

Lovelace turns her head towards Minkowski and gives her a wide smile. “Don’t worry, everyone has that problem the first dozen times or so. You get the hang of it after a while.” She pauses. “If you want, I could help you put it on.”

_ Oh.  _ Minkowski’s blush deepens, and she inhales involuntarily. “I—” She’s about to decline, but she looks back at her suit, only halfway up her body. She considers what it might be like to struggle with that for eternity like the modern Sisyphus, getting the suit  _ almost _ on just to fail again. Minkowski sighs. “Yeah. Come here.”

Lovelace nods. The smile is gone from her mouth now, but not from her dark eyes, which sparkle. “Alright then, Lieutenant.” She walks over, going behind Minkowski, and Minkowski’s breath grows faster even as she tries to control it.  _ Calm down, Renée, calm down.  _ Minkowski takes deep breaths in and out as Lovelace’s fingers skim over the skin her back, sending a tingling feeling through her entire body.  _ For god’s sake, she’s putting your clothes on, not taking them off.  _ The thought surprises Minkowski for a second, and she jerks, jarring Lovelace. Lovelace grunts. “Minkowski, don’t move,” she says, sounding exasperated, and Minkowski obliges and stands still. Then Lovelace’s fingers grasp a clasp on the suit right at the small of Minkowski’s back that she hadn’t found before, and there’s a  _ click _ as she releases it. Instantly the suit feels roomier and less constricting, and Minkowski breathes a sigh of relief. “Okay,” Lovelace says, “try slipping your arms in now.”

Minkowski does as she says, trying the technique she had been using one more time. To her surprise it works this time, and she manages to get the suit on, shrugging it over her arms. Lovelace does up the zipper in the back, and then it’s over and the circuitry suit is fully on. Minkowski’s mouth twitches up at the corners, and she turns to look at Lovelace. “Thank you, Captain.”

Lovelace gives her a mock-salute. “You’re welcome, Minkowski.” Then she turns away and shucks off her t-shirt, and Minkowski’s eyes widen.

Lovelace’s back is lithe and muscular and seeing her shirtless sends a hot pulse of  _ something  _ down Minkowski’s spine, but whatever the feeling was is almost immediately supplanted by icy horror, because the skin of her back…

The smooth, dark skin of Lovelace’s back is marred by a huge scar, a slash stretching through the small of her back just above the waistline of her pants. It’s obviously old, but it still looks painful. Minkowski hisses through her teeth involuntarily. Whatever the injury was that gave her this scar, it probably should have killed her.

For the first time Minkowski understands why Lovelace might have been too scared to try piloting again. She turns away, a coppery taste rising in her mouth, and clears her throat. “Um. So… now I put on the battle armor?”

“Nah,” says Lovelace, and Minkowski hears a rustle of clothing as she presumably takes her pants off as well. “There are people out there who’ll take care of that. It kind of needs to be bolted on, y’know?”

“Oh. Okay then,” Minkowski says. Embarrassment makes her voice crack slightly, and she winces, clearing her throat. “Uh. Yeah.” She inhales deeply. “I’ll just… go and wait for you there, then?”

There’s a zipping noise, and then footsteps as Lovelace walks into Minkowski’s field of vision, fully dressed in the circuitry suit and carrying the pieces of her armor. “Why wait?” she says. “I mean, unless you want me to walk ten feet behind you so that you can pretend you don’t know me. Is that it? Are you embarrassed of me, Minkowski?” She smiles, but there’s a hint of uncertainty in it, and Minkowski blinks.

“Embarrassed I’ll fall on my face and you’ll see it, more like,” she says, and immediately regrets it.  _ Why did I think that was a clever response? Dammit! _ But Lovelace laughs, low and smoky.

“I mean,” Lovelace says, grinning, “I did already see you get knocked on your ass in the ring and watch you get stuck half-naked trying to get your suit on, so I don’t think one more little fall is going to damage my opinion of you.” Her face sobers almost immediately. “And for what it’s worth… nothing bad is going to happen, Minkowski. I remember my first time drifting. I know what you’re feeling. It’ll be weird as hell, but it’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Minkowski hates how hesitant her voice his, how desperate for reassurance she is, but there's no judgment on Lovelace's face. She reaches out and touches Minkowski's arm.

“I'm positive.”

“Well then,” Minkowski says, holding out her arm for Lovelace to take, “let’s get going.”

They walk out the door together.

* * *

The drivesuit is heavy when it’s fully on, and Minkowski shifts uncomfortably in her tether, trying to ignore the weight and the heat and the itch she’s developed along the belly of her right forearm that she can’t scratch. She grits her teeth and looks around the Conn-Pod instead, trying to focus on something else, anything else, to distract herself. She scans over the HUDs, the control panels, the displays and coolant systems, but it’s hard to distract herself from the alien feeling of the suit and the rigs she’s attached to, the spinal clamp attached to her back and the fact that she’s standing off the floor, her boots locked in to a pair of hydraulic leg controls. It’s unnatural for her and she feels like everything about her must reflect that, that feeling that what she’s doing doesn’t track with what her body thinks she  _ should  _ be doing. Minkowski flicks her eyes over to to the right, to Lovelace, taking in her stance and trying to mimic it. The captain looks… not relaxed, not really. Minkowski can see the tension in her body posture, can easily picture her coiled muscles under the suit. But even though she’s pulled as tight as a harp string, Minkowski can see the familiarity in her stance. She doesn’t look relaxed or calm, but she projects an image of competence.

_ That’s because she is competent,  _ thinks Minkowski.  _ That’s because she’s done this before. She’s been here before. _

_ Lovelace knows what she’s doing. _

Lovelace glances over at Minkowski suddenly, and Minkowski almost looks away on instinct. She manages to catch herself and hold Lovelace’s gaze, looking steadily at her. The helmet visor gives her features a strange orange tint. Behind it, Lovelace’s expression is almost the same one she had when Minkowski first saw her— lips pressed together, sober and serious. Beyond that, though, is something else. Minkowski might be imagining it, but she thinks she sees a glint in Lovelace’s eye that reminds her of how she looked when they were fighting. Wild, pure joy. It makes her smile.

“Enjoying being back in the saddle, Captain?” she asks, her voice transmitting through the communicator into Lovelace’s helmet.

Lovelace raises an eyebrow at Minkowski. “Does it  _ look _ like I’m enjoying it, Minkowski?” she asks, but her tone is light despite the words, teasing. The corners of her mouth twitch up, and she rolls her neck. “Yeah. Despite everything… it’s kind of nice.” Then her expression darkens. “We’ll see if that feeling lasts into the drift.”

The words send a chill down Minkowski’s spine, but she does her best not to show it, keeping her voice lighthearted. “We can only hope.” She looks around the Conn-Pod one more time. “Hey, any idea when—”

She’s interrupted by the crackle of her helmet speakers, then Eiffel’s voice comes on, practically bubbling over with excitement. “Ohhh _ kay! _ Buckle your seatbelts and keep all arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because we’re doing it, we’re making this happen. Ready?”

Minkowski’s stomach clenches, and she swallows hard. She tries to speak, but the words get caught on the way up. She clears her throat and tries again. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready. Lovelace?”

Lovelace’s face hardens into a mask, but Minkowski sees that spark again in her eyes. “Ready. Lower us down, Eiffel.” “Aye aye, Cap’n. Engaging drop.” There’s another crackle as Eiffel signs off, and then the Conn-Pod starts to lower down onto the shoulders of  _ Hephaestus Station.  _ It settles with a slight shake and a  _ clunk,  _ and Minkowski exhales hard. Her heart is beating like a hummingbird’s, a rapid  _ thump-thump-thump-thump  _ against her ribcage, and she feels like her legs are about to collapse under her. Minkowski takes deep, measured breaths to try and head off the feeling, but it doesn’t particularly help. 

Beside her, Lovelace laughs a breathless little laugh. “Wow. This is a lot smoother than I remember.” She inhales audibly. “We used to just fall.”

Minkowski’s eyes widen. “You’re joking.”

“Wish I was.” Lovelace shakes her head.

Hera’s voice comes over the speakers. “Alright. Initiating link in ten… nine… eight… seven… six...”

Lovelace glances at Minkowski. “You got this?” she asks, quietly so that Hera can’t hear.

Minkowski takes a quick breath, then nods. “Yes.”

Lovelace laughs, a short “ha!” “You’re a bad liar, Renée Minkowski,” she says.  

“One,” says Hera, and the world turns white.

* * *

_ Lovelace’s fifth grade birthday party and her giving into the impulse to face-plant into the cake, just once, and then spent hours washing the icing out of her curly hair afterwards, thinking it was worth it the entire time— _

_ Lovelace on the varsity basketball team in a sweat-soaked jersey, scoring basket after basket, the star of the team with no one in the stands to watch her— _

_ Mother always away with the military, father always working, Lovelace throwing a party and getting smashed and flashes of darkness and waking up in bed with a girl from her math class— _

_ Early days of college, a whirlwind of work and papers and so little sleep and maybe a little too much partying because she’s there on a sports scholarship right, she can afford to slack off a little, until— _

_ Broken glass and red lights and blood and broken bone and the question in a small, small voice, “will I ever walk again?” — _

_ Physical therapy giving way to more exercises, different exercises, a different career path, joining the Air Force military like her mother but not like her mother at all— _

_ Disobeying her commanding officer on a flight mission and almost getting grounded, almost getting skinned alive by her superiors, but they let her go because she was the best they had and they knew it— _

_ The first kaiju attacks, she had just turned 23— _

_ The Jaeger program— _

_ A razor blade of a woman with long, strawberry-blonde hair and sharp canines, familiar to her as her own mind— _

_ Waves of saltwater and pain crashing over Lovelace’s body— my body— _

_ So much blood— _

_ HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?! _

An iron door slams shut and locks on that thought, cutting it off, and there’s a half-second of intense confusion before Minkowski gasps and comes back to herself. There’s a presence in her head still— Lovelace’s presence— but she’s herself again. She’s breathing hard and sweating like she just ran a marathon, and she can feel her heart and Lovelace’s both racing. A mechanical voice echoes through the Conn-Pod, but Minkowski doesn’t catch the words.

There’s an echo of something over the connection, some emotion, from Lovelace. Pain? Then that’s cut off by a feeling of intense satisfaction. Triumph, almost.

“Yours or mine?” Minkowski asks, without thinking.

Lovelace laughs, and Minkowski feels it in herself. “Does it matter?”

“Not really.” Minkowski takes a deep breath, tipping her head back slightly to look at the— ceiling? — ceiling of the Conn-Pod. She can feel the sweat drying on her face, but there’s no exhaustion in her body. The heaviness of the drivesuit has just… gone, too. Then she looks back down and raises her arms into a defensive position, knowing Lovelace is doing the same. The mechanical arms of  _ Hephaestus Station  _ move with them, Minkowski can tell even without seeing. It’s the feeling she had during the fight; perfect synchronity. This time, though, it’s so smooth and so effortless. Minkowski’s mind clears, like the mental pollution is being filtered out.  

Hera’s voice comes over the comms, into the Conn-Pod. Normally the suddenness would startle Minkowski, but this time she doesn’t so much as flinch. Maybe it’s  because Lovelace is calm.

“Link is good,” Hera says. “Try walking. Carefully.”

“Roger that,” says Lovelace, and then they— she, Lovelace, the Jaeger, the perfect melding of all of them together— take a step forwards. Then another. Then another.

Minkowski has never done something this difficult with this much ease before, and she laughs.

They’ve almost made a lap around the chamber when the comms crackle again. Minkowski expects to hear Hera, or maybe Eiffel, but this time it’s Cutter’s voice over the intercom. “Wow, Isabel! You’re doing so well, considering what happened the last time you were a pilot. I’m impressed that you kept your skills!” 

A spike of anger runs through Lovelace, and Minkowski reaches out with her mind to her.  _ It’s okay, _ she thinks, reaching out and soothing.  _ Don’t let him get to you. Don’t let him— _

Cutter breaks through her mental projection, still talking. “Yes, you’re both showing a lot of promise. I wonder how you’ll do against a kaiju—“

_ Kaiju. _

_ Codenamed Urania, a Category III kaiju, off the coast of New York and headed for the city. There among the waves—  _

The memory overwhelms Lovelace for the briefest of seconds before she shuts it down, but it’s a second too long for Minkowski. The view out the Conn-Pod of  _ Hephaestus Station _ switches to the darkness of the ocean at night like a light turning off, she tastes salt in the air, and then the world shifts and changes as Minkowski chases Lovelace’s RABIT all the way down. 


	6. Chapter 6

_ There’s exhaustion in her limbs because she’s not used to waking up in the middle of the night, but to her relief moving the Jaeger through the rushing waves feels no different than normal walking; she hadn’t been out here before, and for some reason she’d been expecting resistance from the water. The moonlit night is absolutely empty of any disturbance. It’s eerie how calm it is, a kind of eerie that makes her stomach churn, and she speaks into her partner’s mind. “God damn it, the thing should be here. We had it pinpointed, right?”  _

_ Her partner glances towards her, then bares her pointed teeth in a grimace. Despite how harsh her expression is, her lips look soft. “It’s here, all right,” she says, her mental voice annoyed. “I can feel it.” _

_ She wants to argue with that, but her partner is right. There’s something here. There’s something off, and she knows it in her gut.  _

_ “Alright, just keep an eye out,” she starts to think, but before she can finish her sentence the water explodes into churning froth and a nightmare rears up in front of them.  _

_ It’s huge, too big to really take in all at once; she catches glimpses of clawed hands and patches of scales and teeth like a T. rex mated with a great white, huge and serrated and in rows all the way down its mouth. There’s a flash of fear in her mind, because she’s never fought something this big before, never been on the same scale, but her partner is steady as a rock and it calms her to feel that stillness in herself too, connected. In the split-second before Urania attacks, time slows down. _

_ The kaiju swings a clawed arm at them, moving forwards on its two hind legs like Godzilla about to attack Tokyo, but they duck the swipe and come up with a heavy punch to the thing’s sternum, the impact echoing through  _ Hephaestus Station  _ and through her own arms as well, all the way up to the shoulder. Urania roars, an ear-splitting sound even from inside the Conn-Pod. She gets a good look down its throat and sees the spirals of teeth  _ move _ , spinning like a grinder. It starts to bite down on  _ Hephaestus Station _ ’s head, but they jerk an arm up in time and it closes on that instead, teeth ripping at the metal with a horrible crunching sound and a burst of feedback-pain from the circuitry suit. Urania moves forwards and its bulk hits them like an iceberg, forcing them to take one step back, then two, but there’s no fear in either of their minds because the mistake it’s made is so suddenly obvious that she almost laughs before they take their other arm and jab it wholly into the thing’s belly. There’s a millisecond where everything seems to stop, and she swears she could see realization in its eyes before the plasma cannon powers up and they blow a hole in its chest. And then another. And then another. Kaiju blue splatters everywhere, mixing in with the water like ink, and its jaws loosen and then open. Urania falls back into the waves, and before it can sink completely they shoot it one more time in the head. Just to make sure. There have been horror stories, after all. _

_ They don’t go back until they’re sure it’s staying dead. _

_ The wind picks up as they pilot the Jaeger back, and for a second she swears she can hear something in it like a voice— “Minkowski,” it says, and she frowns. Sounds familiar, but she can’t place it. She’s never met a Minkowski. She shakes her head slightly and decides to ignore it. Too little sleep, maybe, making her dreams force their way into her thoughts. Too little sleep and too much excitement. At least it all went quick.  _

_ She expects her partner to ask, but the other woman is silent, almost like she hadn’t heard anything at all through the link. Not so strange. Her mind is clear and focused on the task at hand: getting back and getting into bed. There’s a brief flash in her partner’s thoughts, though, and  she sees shoulder-length dark hair wildly curling, strong back muscles, her own face. There’s an emotion, too quick to be identified, and then it’s all gone, pushed away back into the depths of her partner’s mind as they reach the Shatterdome. Just clear focus, and a touch of embarrassment.  _

_ She looks over at her partner, and there might—  _ might—  _ be a bit of a blush under the yellow tint of the helmet. It’s— well. It’s damned cute. And if she’s thinking that just a bit louder so that her partner can hear it more clearly, so be it. The maybe-blush deepens, and her partner grins at her with sharp, sharp teeth.  _

_ “Minkowski,” she hears again, more clearly, more urgently. This time she looks around, confused. There is no Minkowski. There’s only her and her partner. That’s all. But…  _

_ “Hey,” she sends, through the link. “Did you hear something?” _

_ There’s a long moment of absolute silence in response; no emotion, no thoughts. Whereas before the silence had seemed to have someone in it, as usual, this silence is as empty as a grave. She shivers. _

_ “Eris,” she thinks, “you in there? Hello?” _

_ More silence. Then Eris looks up, catches her eye with her own. Even through the visor her eyes are a shocking shade of green, like radioactive waste in a children’s cartoon. When she speaks her voice reverberates through the Conn-Pod like it shouldn’t, echoes on echoes in the mindspace and in the physical world making the pitch almost deafening. _

_ “This isn’t your place, Renée,” she says, and Eris’s voice isn’t her voice anymore, it’s Lovelace’s— it’s hers— it’s— it’s—  _

_ With a finality like a church bell ringing she speaks one more time, and Lovelace can feel the words in her chest, the vibrations shaking her where she stands more than the fight with the kaiju did. _

_ “Get. Out,” Lovelace’s voice from Eris’s mouth says, and—  _

Minkowski comes up in the Conn-Pod of  _ Hephaestus Station  _ again, bent over as much as her suit and the clamps would allow and gasping for air. She’s sure the Jaeger’s not moving, but the world is spinning around her, making her nauseous and dizzy. Her cheeks are wet with tears she hadn’t realized she was crying, and her head is pounding, the blood pumping in her ears like ocean waves crashing against her skull, eroding it. The mental link is gone, and where it was hurts like a pulled tooth without anesthetic, persistent and raw.

A voice crackles through Minkowski’s ears and she flinches, closing her eyes against the wall of noise that feels like it’s going to crack her fragile skull like an eggshell. “Minkowski,” it says, and through the fog Minkowski recognizes the voice’s pitch, the timbre. Lovelace repeats herself. “Minkowski, are you okay?”

Minkowski opens her mouth to answer, but words don’t come out of her mouth; instead she retches, her stomach trying to relieve itself of its contents in response to how  _ sick  _ she feels. But she hasn’t eaten and there’s nothing to throw up, so instead she just dry-heaves into her helmet, sweat beading on her forehead. She vaguely hears Lovelace talking again, but the meaning of her words is lost between them. Another voice— Hera’s?— answers, and then the clamp on Minkowski’s spine and the sensors on her arms and feet release with a noise of depressurization. She almost topples forwards, but hands grab her, strong and sure. “Hey,” says Lovelace, clearer this time. “Hey, I’ve got you.” Her grip is all that’s holding Minkowski up, and Minkowski slumps against her body and lets out a ragged cough of a sob. 

“Sorry,” she manages to whisper. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” 

The words tear at the lining of her throat like shards of glass, and she imagines blood coming up with them, blood and bile. 

“It’s okay,” says Lovelace, her voice quiet and soothing. “You’re okay, Minkowski.” Her arms wrap around Minkowski, secure and firm in their support as she holds her, but Minkowski catches a glimpse of pain and exhaustion in her eyes before the world starts to dissolve around her. A whirring noise surrounds them as the Conn-Pod begins to ascend, and the blackness eating at Minkowski’s vision consumes her completely as she goes under. 

She doesn’t dream.

* * *

 

When Minkowski wakes up it’s not all at once, but by degrees, coming back to her senses slowly. The aches are what she notices first— every muscle hurts like she’s been running a marathon every day for a week, and her body is stiff and sore with exertion. It’s exacerbated by what she’s lying on; whatever it is feels barely softer than the surface of a table, and despite herself she winces.  _ Ow. _ There’s the hum of a fan in her ears, but no breeze, and the hot air smells like paint and metal and deodorant, almost familiar but not entirely. She lies there for a minute or two, or an hour or two, or a day or two, taking in her surroundings with her senses, and then she overrides her body’s protests and pries her gluey eyelids open to sit up, blinking the crusty feeling out of her eyes. Minkowski looks around.

It’s a stark room, as Spartan as her own, but distinctly not hers. Clearly someone’s personal living quarters, though; there’s a book on the otherwise bare surface of the bedside table, some battered mystery novel with what looks like a coffee stain on the cover, and clothes peek out through the partially-open drawers of the dresser and are piled in a corner in lieu of a hamper. A rumpled olive jacket hangs over the back of the one chair. Minkowski looks down at the bed and sees that beneath her it’s unmade, and she cringes slightly in discomfort.  _ I’m intruding,  _ she thinks.  _ I shouldn’t be here.  _

She makes a move to get up and leave, but before her feet can touch the floor the door opens and Lovelace comes in, balancing a cup of water in one hand and what looks like an ice pack and a bottle of painkillers in The other. She freezes for a moment in the doorway when she sees Minkowski awake, and then seems to regain her composure. “Oh, good,” she says, her voice rough around the edges like she’s been screaming. “You’re up.” Lovelace takes a deep breath and walks in, and the door swings shut behind her with a strangely final  _ click.  _ She sets the water and painkillers down on the nightstand and holds out the ice pack to Minkowski. “I… got you some stuff I thought you might want. I didn’t know what you’d need, so.” She gestures awkwardly with her free hand. “Yeah.”

The silence stretches for just a moment too long, and then Minkowski reaches out and takes the ice pack from Lovelace, placing it to her forehead. The cold soothes her, a sharp contrast to the feverish heat of the air and her body. “Thank you,” she says. “I… appreciate it.” 

“No problem,” Lovelace says. There’s another long moment of silence, and then she clears her throat and sits down on her chair. She looks smaller now, her shoulders narrower and hunched. There are dark circles under her eyes, and Minkowski notices for the first time how exhausted she seems; like the weight of the world has stooped her over, bowed her down underneath it. She brings her feet up onto the chair, almost curling up on the seat, and looks away from Minkowski’s eyes. “So,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

Minkowski pauses for a moment, taking mental inventory, and then says “Like I got doused in jet fuel and set on fire.” She looks at the painkillers and water on the nightstand, and then sighs and puts the ice pack down. She reads the bottle carefully, then shakes out two pills and downs them with water, aware of how Lovelace’s gaze has turned to her now that Minkowski’s looking away. When she’s done she turns back to Lovelace, and Lovelace averts her eyes quickly and looks down again, at the floor like she’s looking for patterns in it. “Thanks,” Minkowski says, and then she decides to bite the bullet. “Okay, what happened back there? Why did I— what did— what  _ happened?” _ Her face tries to burn with embarrassment, but she shoves it down. “Lovelace—“

“You chased the RABIT. Followed one of my memories as a pilot,” Lovelace interrupts, her voice matter-of-fact. She looks up and meets Minkowski’s eyes. “I was trying to snap you out of it, but you were— too deep into my past mind, I guess. So I wasn’t able to for a while, and in the meantime I brought  _ Hephaestus Station  _ back to dock and stopped us. Then I went back to trying to wake you up. You were… you were pretty far gone. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get you to snap out of it before Hera ended the Drift, and that… would not have been good.” Lovelace goes for a weak attempt at a smile. “But you aren’t gonna get away from me that easy, Minkowski.” Her voice softens. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

The pity in her voice is what does it. Tears rise to Minkowski’s eyes again, stinging and burning, and Minkowski blinks and looks away, hating how she’s crying again and how noticeable it must be. She swipes at her eyes with a shaking hand. “Dammit,” she whispers. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.”  _ Fuckup. Screwup. Failure, failure, failure. Not fit to be a pilot. Going to be dismissed—  _ “I ruined everything,” she says, out loud. “I ruined everything.” She hates how weak her voice is. 

_ Weak, like me.  _

The chair screeches slightly against the floor and then Lovelace is standing next to her with her hands on her shoulders, pulling Minkowski to look her in the eye. “Lieutenant, listen to me,” she says, her voice like iron. “Today was a disaster, okay? I fucked up because I should have been more in control of my thoughts and more disciplined and you fucked up because you followed the wrong instinct. But neither of us can afford self-pity right now. You want to cry, then cry, but you are not going to sit here and act like there’s no hope.” Lovelace takes a deep breath. “‘There aren’t enough Jaegers, there aren’t enough resources, there’s not enough time, and above all there aren’t enough people.’ Your words, Minkowski, not mine. So right now you can afford the time to feel sorry for yourself, but goddammit, you’re going to get up tomorrow morning and try again with me if I have to drag you. Understood?” 

Minkowski just stares at her for a long moment, taking in Lovelace’s stance, tone, demeanor. It’s a far cry from the frightened woman she had seen yesterday. There’s no uncertainty in her; instead she’s solid as a rock. This is the woman called  _ Captain  _ Lovelace. 

Her grip on Minkowski’s shoulders is tight and Minkowski has a sudden burst of warmth in her chest, accompanied by the thought of what it might be like to reach out and pull her in and kiss her, right on her lips. Her mouth looks soft— 

Minkowski pulls away from Lovelace’s touch, cutting that thought off in the middle. “Understood,” she says, her voice still ragged. “And… as much as I hate to admit it, you’re right. There’s no time to wallow.” She pauses, then speaks on impulse, not really thinking. “Who’s Eris?”

The words have an immediate effect on Lovelace; her face falls and her brown eyes dull, like she’s consciously pulling back from reality. She moves to sit on the edge of the bed, next to Minkowski but being oh so careful not to touch her. When she speaks her voice is modulated, her words carefully chosen. “Eris,” she says, “was my partner.”

_ Was,  _ Minkowski notes.  _ Past tense.  _ “Partner in piloting or partner as in…?”

“Yes,” Lovelace says. “Just… yes. In any possible way you mean that. Yes. We were.”

“And what are you now?” asks Minkowski.

Lovelace shakes her head slowly, pulling her arms into herself like she’s cold. Her words are quiet. “She’s nothing anymore.”

“Oh.”

There’s a long moment of silence before Minkowski speaks again. “Can I stay here tonight?” Lovelace turns to her and raises an eyebrow, but Minkowski rushes to continue before she can say anything, her heart pounding. “I just— I don’t want to be alone.”

Lovelace pauses, then shrugs. “If you don’t mind sleeping in the same room as a chronic insomniac, sure. As long as you take the bed. I can sleep on the floor.”

It’s Minkowski’s turn to raise an eyebrow, and with a burst of inspiration she smiles at Lovelace. “And here I was thinking we could just share,” she says, drawing the words out. “It’ll be simpler that way, and I promise I don’t hog covers."

Lovelace’s eyes go wide, and Minkowski almost laughs when she sees how Lovelace is blushing. “I, uh,” she says. “Sure.” She clears her throat. “Not like the comfort level is that much different anyways. This bed is practically a rock.”

“Thanks,” says Minkowski. She takes a deep breath, then reaches out and brushes her fingers over Lovelace’s arm, touching her oh-so-gently. “I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well,” says Lovelace, and she gives Minkowski a half-smile. “You’re welcome, for now.” She yawns, covering her mouth with one hand, then blinks at Minkowski slowly. “Don’t wear it out, Lieutenant.” 

“Don’t worry,” Minkowski says. “I’ll be in my own room tomorrow night, and then we’ll only be sharing minds.”

Lovelace’s laugh is as tired as the rest of her, but it’s still music to Minkowski’s ears. 


End file.
